Coderre happy with election result

Montreal mayor Denis Coderre said he was pleased a majority government was elected last night.

And while he didn't specifically praise Philippe Couillard's Liberals, he was clearly happy that he no longer had to answer questions about some aspects of the PQ's program, namely the secularism charter and the possibility of another referendum.

Denis Coderre said the most important thing to come out of the election was stability: four years without a risk of going to polls.

But it also means that there will be at least another four years without having to deal with the politically charged atmosphere of the past 18 months.

"I said since the beginning that I didn't want to hear anything about a referendum," he said. "This is a new government. We want to talk about the economy, we want to talk about jobs. Now for sure we won't have the charter nor the referendum."

Coderre again reiterated his desire for a special status law for Montreal and Quebec City, including the creation of an inspector general - a post that came within days of being passed but was interrupted by the election.

He said a special status law may take up to two years to pass but the hopes the inspector general position will be created soon.

I find Coderre cool. He is on the news like everyday - you never have to ask yourself what he is up to or where has he been lately. I'd love for this guy to get special city status and loosen up some of the language laws... then you just might see droves of people moving back to Montreal. We might actually get English content on all the borough links on the Montreal website. We might even see the bilingual signs in stores again not to mention at Coderre's own press conferences. Or 'gasp' finally see Montreal officially declared a bilingual city, which Duceppe conceded on CTV last night that "everyone knows Montreal is bilingual". Make it so, Mr. Coderre. Make it so!